Tapestry

I have just 12 minutes. A dozen more minutes in the YMCA lobby until I need to return to the childcare center, where my youngest is playing. A dozen minutes before I need to leave for the big kid’s school, where I have pledged to volunteer as a lunch parent for my other daughter’s class. A dozen minutes to pour my thoughts into this entry, reflecting on the body of work I have formed in this last season of my life. A dozen minutes until I need to remember to detour home so I can retrieve the glasses my youngest left behind. She says the world is a bit blurry, but she’s okay, no headache, no tummy ache.

No one ever told me that adulthood is an unending balancing act, a perpetual cycle of prioritizing, deciding, executing, repeat. The more hearts you cradle, the more variables orbit around you, like meteors tracing an unpredictable path. The more dreams you nurture, the more pressure you bear to gently introduce them to the world, so they have their chance to form without inadvertently wreaking havoc on your little universe.

My life is currently overflowing, not with hardship, but with beauty, art, and activity. It seems this is the common rhythm for everyone I know. When I get together with my friends and we ask how everyone is doing, our individual narratives collide and can all be distilled into the explanation – “it’s a lot”. At present, my “a lot” encompasses completing a dozen paintings and preparing them for my first gallery showing. Tomorrow, my “a lot” will involve penning thoughts about these pieces. The following day will be dedicated to framing them, and the day after that will be me making apple pie and cranberry relish.

Life is a tapestry, a vibrant mix of yellows, reds, and purples, weaving in and out. Sometimes there are blocks of a single color, but not in my tapestry. The colors flow, creating a pattern I can’t predict, no matter how hard I try. If I could, maybe I could speed up the process, and satisfy my inner control freak. But compartmentalization is a myth. You can’t put off vital areas of life until you’ve exhausted one color. By the time you reach for your purple thread, it might have rolled away or disintegrated.

My 12 minutes have passed, and I’m teetering on the edge of being late. I need to get my little one, and I can’t forget her glasses. I want to share more on my work, but it will have to wait. In the meantime, may your days be embroidered with beauty and joy, woven into the fabric of your “muchness".